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With the advent of these strategies, cardiac arrest came to be called clinical death rather than simply death, to reflect the possibility of post-arrest resuscitation. At the onset of clinical death, consciousness is lost within several seconds, and in dogs, measurable brain activity has been measured to stop within 20 to 40 seconds. [2]
When the brain does not receive enough blood, this can cause a person to lose consciousness and brain cells can start to die due to lack of oxygen. [13] Coma and persistent vegetative state may result from cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest is also identified by a lack of central pulses and abnormal or absent breathing. [1]
Post-cardiac arrest syndrome (PCAS) is an inflammatory state of pathophysiology that can occur after a patient is resuscitated from a cardiac arrest. [1] While in a state of cardiac arrest, the body experiences a unique state of global ischemia .
According to the American Heart Association, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest can affect more than 300,000 people in the United States each year. [5] Three minutes after the onset of cardiac arrest, a lack of blood flow starts to damage the brain, and 10 minutes after, the chances of survival are low. [6]
Preserving brainstem activity with agonal breathing correlates with better neurological outcomes for patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. [7] The presence of agonal respirations in these cases indicates a more favorable prognosis than in cases of cardiac arrest without agonal respirations.
The 2013 ILCOR and 2010 American Heart Association guidelines support the use of cooling following resuscitation from cardiac arrest. [1] [7] These recommendations were largely based on two trials from 2002 which showed improved survival and brain function when cooled to 32–34 °C (90–93 °F) after cardiac arrest.
Patients have died not long after their circulation has returned. One study showed that those who had had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and had achieved return of spontaneous circulation, 38% of those people had a cardiac re-arrest before arriving at the hospital with an average time of 3 minutes to re-arrest. [8]
Brain death also results from a lack of blood flow to the brain because the heart stops beating (cardiac arrest), which is when the ECG imaging shows a cardiac flat line (asystole). [4] Diagnosis: Brain death is diagnosed if a person is experiencing all of the following three conditions: in a coma and unresponsive to painful stimuli,